North Brabant

North Brabant (Dutch: Noord-Brabant, commonly called Brabant) is a province in the south of The Netherlands. It's bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River (Maas) in the north, Limburg in the east and Zeeland in the west.

Cities

Eindhoven - the city where Philips Electronics was founded, and still Eindhoven has a good reputation on technology all over the world, with companies like ASML. Also, Eindhoven is home to PSV, one of the main football teams in the 'Eredivisie'.

Tilburg - always was known as Wool City, now it has many modern industries. It has not the most historical buildings, but it contains many cafes, museums, two well-known concert halls and a university.

Heusden - A small, charming town built on medieval fortifications surrounded by water.

Understand

The southern provinces have historically been the Roman Catholic area of the Netherlands, in contrast with the protestantism in the rest of the country. That's still well visible in the churches and cathedrals. It's also said that the catholic way of life brings a more bourgondic lifestyle.
It is not wise to talk about traveling in "Holland", people from North Brabant (as well as Limburg) live in the Netherlands.

Get in

Eindhoven has its own airport, but from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport there's a direct train connection to 's Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven.

Get around

Road networks between the cities (40,000 inhabitants or more) are, except for Tilburg-'s-Hertogenbosch, are motorways. Around 's-Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven are local/express highways which can be confusing to foreigners. Roads to smaller towns and villages can be adventurous, not because of gaps in the road, but mostly of being small and winding.

Another option to get around is by train. Trains serve the bigger towns and villages (60000 inhabitants or more and villages between them). Trains serve also in the nights on thursday/friday, friday/saturday and saturday/sunday the cities of Eindhoven, Tilburg, Breda and 's-Hertogenbosch. Eindhoven is the terminus for both night train lines. A fast high-speed rail (300km/h, 190mph) connection with Rotterdam and Amsterdam is possible from Breda

Buses are a good option for tourists outside North-Brabant to go to the Efteling, from 's-Hertogenbosch train station. The buses are also a good option for travelling trough villages not connected by trains, but are generally slow.

See

The historic cities of 's-Hertogenbosch and Breda

The many forests which cover up to 20% of the provine's area

Modern architecture in Tilburg and Eindhoven

Pitoresque villages spreaded over all of the province

Do

The historic cities of Den Bosch, and Breda are well worth a visit. The cities of Eindhoven (the largest city of the province and well known for its famous football club PSV Eindhoven) and Tilburg are also worth a visit but due to different reasons the centres of these cities are not as historical as you will find in Breda and 's Hertogenbosch (also widely known as Den Bosch).

The yearly Carnival is heavily celebrated in each city and town with parades and a lot of partying.

Eat

Popular is for example 'worstenbroodje', a fifteen centimeter long soft bread, filled with some kind of sausage. Also the 'Bossche Bol', a pastry from 's-Hertogenbosch, is Brabant-exclusive food.

Drink

Popular alcoholic drinks, like Bavaria and Dommelsch are made in the province of North Brabant

Stay safe

Never, never talk like you're in Holland! In some cities, like Oss have a past of gangs and rebellions against the Holland area, because their city was flooded everytime Holland wanted to 'protect all of the Dutch'. Besides that, Brabant was always disclosed from political participation for centuries because of their Catholic background.